Two practitioners can look at an identical sodium-to-potassium result, one calls it fine and the other circles it, and neither has made a mistake. The ideal figures the two systems publish are almost the same. What differs is the width of the window drawn around them — and that width is a deliberate choice, not a rounding error.
Analytical Research Labs builds its acceptable ranges against an ideal standard of health. Trace Elements and the other reference sets in circulation build theirs against an average standard — the middle of what a large population produces. Those two starting points cannot give the same window: a population average is not the same target as an individual optimum.
The practical consequence is the point. A narrower range is more sensitive: it flags subtle deviations that a wider range absorbs without comment, which is what you want when the goal is optimal rather than typical. That is why the reports here are read against ARL guidelines.
Nobody is wrong here. A wide range is honest about population variation. A narrow range is honest about how little deviation it takes to matter. ARL is the stricter of the two on purpose, and that strictness is the feature being bought.
Ideals first, because this is the part people expect to be contested and it is not. Published as a range across both systems, the significant ratios sit within a few percent of each other.
| Ratio | Ideal (both systems) | ARL acceptable range | Trace Elements acceptable range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ca/Mg | 6.67 – 7 | 4.5 – 8.5 (4 units wide) | 3 – 11 (8 units wide) |
| Ca/K | 4 – 4.2 | 3 – 6 (3 wide) | 2.2 – 6.2 (4 wide) |
| Na/Mg | 4 – 4.17 | 3.17 – 6.17 (3 wide) | 2 – 6 (4 wide) |
| Na/K | 2.4 – 2.5 | 2.5 – 4.1 (1.6 wide) | 1.4 – 3.4 (2 wide) |
| Zn/Cu | 8 (both agree) | 6 – 12 (6 wide) | 4 – 12 (8 wide) |
| Ca/P | 2.5 – 2.6 | 1.6 – 3.6 (2 wide) | 1.8 – 3.6 (1.8 wide) |
| Fe/Cu | 0.9 (Trace Elements) | not part of the ARL core set | 0.2 – 1.6 |
Read the ideal column and the range columns as separate arguments. The ideals differ by a third of a unit at most; the ARL windows run roughly a fifth to a half narrower, reaching a full factor of two at calcium to magnesium. Calcium to magnesium is the clearest case — an eight-unit window against a four-unit one, both centred on very nearly the same number. Calcium to phosphorus is the honest exception, where the Trace Elements window is marginally the tighter, 1.8 units against 2.
The three figures below are constructed examples, chosen to sit between the two guideline sets. They are not readings from any client report.
None of these is a diagnosis. They are trends, and the case for the tighter window is that a trend you can see is more useful than one you cannot.
Here is the part that sounds like an inconsistency and is actually the intended workflow.
For the testing itself, I use Trace Elements. Two practical reasons: more elements are reported on the panel, and the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio is applied to set the metabolic pack. Trace Elements weights Ca/P heavily enough to move a client between a fast-pattern and a slow-pattern pack on the strength of it. ARL uses the same autonomic framing but does not change the programme on that ratio — its four core ratios all derive from ideal calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium, and phosphorus sits outside that set.
For the interpretive ranges, I use the ARL guidelines — for the ideal-standard reason above.
So a Trace Elements report read against ARL ranges is the design, not a mismatch. You get the wider panel and the Ca/P weighting that sets the metabolic pack, with the stricter interpretive windows on top. Working out which analysis kit to order is handled on its own page.
It also explains why two competent practitioners can read the same printout and put a client on different programmes. Calcium to phosphorus is usually the reason.
The ranges are not the only thing that differs. ARL works from oxidation rate — fast and slow oxidation, plus named patterns. The vocabulary is oxidative: how quickly the cell produces energy. That is the language that travels with Endo-met formulas.
Trace Elements works from autonomic dominance. Fast Metabolic type means sympathetic dominance, Slow Metabolic type parasympathetic. Dr. Watts does not write "oxidizer" at all. He recognises eight types, and the structure repays understanding: subtype 1 is the dominance pattern itself, while subtypes 2, 3 and 4 mark position in the stress sequence — alarm, chronic resistance, burnout. In the Trace Elements model, subtype 4 of a fast pattern is described as trending over time toward a slow 1 pattern, which is how that framework accounts for a chart moving from a fast pattern to a slow one. Slow 4 is controlled resistance and is the favourable pattern, not the worst one.
A fast oxidizer and a Fast Metabolic type are recognisably the same person. If you are learning how a chart gets sorted into a fast or slow pattern, expect both vocabularies, and keep each attached to its own lineage.
The third thing that makes two reports look contradictory is time. Trace Elements has revised several of its own published values, so an older chart or an older article can carry a number that was correct when printed and is not current.
| Value | Earlier figure | Current figure |
|---|---|---|
| Ideal calcium level | 42 mg% (1985–93) | 60 mg%, range 22–97 (2008 onward) |
| Ideal iron level | 2.8 mg% (1985–93) | 2.2 mg% (1999 onward) |
| Fe/Cu ideal | 1.12 (1993) | 0.9 (2010) |
| Ca/P acceptable floor | 1.6 (2008) | 1.8 (2010) |
| Fe/Pb minimum | 5.6 : 1 (1985, 1993) | 4.4 : 1 (2000, loosened) |
The calcium line causes the most confusion, because 42 mg% appears throughout the older literature. Printed on its own today it reads as a current ideal. Cite the year or do not cite the figure.
Stable across the whole span, and safe without a date: Zn/Cu 8:1, Na/K 2.4:1, Ca/K 4.2:1, Na/Mg 4:1, and copper's ideal of 2.5 mg%.
A good deal of the method is settled regardless of which guideline set is applied on top.
One preparation difference outweighs any range difference. Trace Elements analyses samples unwashed, because washing can remove over 90% of the sodium and potassium. A laboratory that washes cannot validly report Na/K — the central stress-stage ratio. Reference intervals belong to the method that produced them, and that, more than window width, is why two labs' results are not interchangeable.
Curated by Practitioner Eileen Durfee, NBS (Nutritional Balancing Science), NASM-CPT — wellness educator, former nuclear quality engineer, inventor with 10 U.S. and 6 international patents
I came to hair analysis in 2010 under ARNP Julie Walker in Kennewick, Washington, then worked directly with Analytical Research Labs, testing family and friends until the charts began to make sense as a set rather than one at a time. I listened to every cassette Dr. Paul Eck recorded and read every ARL newsletter there was. In August 2011 I signed up with Dr. Larry Wilson for the Nutritional Balancing degree, and I have practised independently since autumn 2017.
Coming out of nuclear quality engineering, the range question was the first thing I wanted settled. There, a specification limit is not a description of what parts usually measure — it is a statement of what the part has to be, and a tolerance set to the population mean will pass almost everything. When I found ARL had drawn its bands against an ideal rather than an average, the argument was familiar and did not need explaining twice.
What I did not anticipate was how often the split itself would need explaining. Someone sees Trace Elements on the letterhead and ARL ranges in the interpretation and assumes something has gone astray. The pairing is chosen, not inherited.
If you are holding a chart and the bands do not agree with what you have been told, send it over. Walking people through their own numbers is exactly what the text support is for, and our Facebook group is free to join whether or not you have ever ordered.
Almost certainly because the graph carries the Trace Elements band while the interpretation is made against the narrower ARL guideline. A Ca/Mg of 9.4 is inside 3 to 11 and outside 4.5 to 8.5. Both are true at once; the flag means the tighter window was applied.
The two decisions are separate. The Trace Elements panel reports more elements and applies Ca/P to set the metabolic pack; the ARL guidelines supply the stricter interpretive windows. Using one for the analysis and the other for the reading is the deliberate combination.
Both were, in their period. Trace Elements published 42 mg% from 1985 through 1993 and 60 mg% with a range of 22 to 97 from 2008 onward. Iron moved from 2.8 mg% to 2.2 in 1999, and Fe/Cu from 1.12 in 1993 to 0.9 by 2000, restated in the Nov–Dec 2010 set. Every figure from this literature needs its year beside it.
Not usefully, and sodium and potassium break first. Reference intervals are derived from one preparation method and apply only to samples prepared that way, so a cross-method comparison mostly measures the laboratories.
No. Accuracy is about the measurement; range width is about the standard the measurement is judged against. A wide band reflects an average-population baseline, a narrow one an ideal-health baseline. The instrument reading is the same number either way.
This article is for educational purposes only. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Hair tissue mineral analysis is a screening test for nutritional and toxic element status and is not a diagnostic test. Nuco Enterprise Solutions LLC.
